Turkey

OECD acknowledges Turkey's progress in combating foreign bribery

30/06/2009 - The 38-country OECD Working Group on Bribery welcomed recent progress by Turkey in its efforts to comply with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. The Working Group completed its Phase 2bis review of Turkey, to assess major areas of concern identified in Turkey’s Phase 2 evaluation.

Since its Phase 2 examination in December 2007, Turkey has taken important steps to address recommendations from the Working Group:

Two foreign bribery cases are currently under investigation, and Turkish officials have recently increased their efforts to gather information about allegations against Turkish companies in the 2005 Final Report of the Independent Inquiry Committee in the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.

A draft law re-introducing corporate liability for foreign bribery is currently under consideration by the Turkish Parliament.

Turkey has implemented a wide range of awareness-raising efforts, which appear to have significantly raised awareness in the business community about the prohibition against bribing foreign public officials in the Turkish Penal Code.

Recognising much positive progress so far, the Working Group remained concerned that Turkey continues to be in non-compliance with one of the main provisions in the Convention as long as companies are not liable for foreign bribery, and recommended that Turkey urgently adopt the draft law on corporate liability.

It also recommended a peer review analysis of the new law on corporate liability once enacted, along with a further assessment of progress on foreign bribery investigations and prosecutions in December 2009.